...Marks and Spencer: Summary Report of the Case Study Introduction Marks and Spencer (M&S) is a leading UK retailer selling clothing, food, and housewares. In 2007, the company put sustainability at the heart of its business. In order to succeed, it would have to change the attitudes and the behavior of its shoppers. As a result, it launched Plan A which set out a five year plan involving 100 social and environmental commitments that were expected to shape the future of the company. Plan A would allow the company to resolve some of the big issues facing their business. They called it Plan A because there is “no B when it comes to conserving the earth’s finite resources” (Marks & Spencer Website). Brief Background on Company In 1884, Michael Marks started the company by selling an assortment of goods in an open-air stall in Leeds, UK. In the 1920’s, the company went public and expanded into general merchandise and ready-to-wear clothing. By the 1970’s, the company had become a British icon and a household name. However, from the 1980’s to 1993 came the troubled years. Despite the expansion of its operations in the 1980’s, the retailer had failed to keep current with its shopper’s preferences and this led to financial woes. From 1994 to 2006, it was back to the basics for the company. By 1996, it had rebounded to become the UK’s most profitable retailer. However, this recovery was short lived, and M&S experienced a significant slump in business in 1999 which continued into the...
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...Marks & Spencer PLC Plan A.Introduction.The total value of UK retail sales were £333 billion in 2014 and 9% of all VAT-registered businesses in the UK retailers, with the total number currently at 192,595. A third of consumer spending goes through these shops and the retail sector generates 5% of the gross domestic product of the UK. (retaileconomics.co.uk 2015). Marks & Spencer PLC has been part of the British high street for over 130 years, starting out as a small penny stall in a market in the City of Leeds, to the iconic £10.3 billion retail brand it is today, employing 83,069 people worldwide. The company has always had a strong ethos of fair trade, treating its staff well, building strong long-term relationships with its suppliers and developing new and initiative relations with its customers from the company outset. (D. Grayson, 2011). Marks & Spencer was the first high street retailer to allow customers to enter their shops without paying for the privilege, prior to this, the proviso was that a customer entering a shop had to buy an item, something that is taken for granted today but in 1894 was unheard of. (marksandspencer.com 2015.) In 1997 the company became the first British retailer to make a pre-tax profit of over £1 billion, although subsequently it went into a sudden slump, which took the company, its shareholders, who included hundreds of thousands of small investors, and nearly all retail analysts and business journalists, by surprise. The reasons...
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...ASSIGNMENT 1: HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT Contents Question 1: 1 Question 2 4 Question 2.1 4 Question 2.2 8 Question 3 12 Question 3.1 12 Question 3.2 15 Bibliography 21 List of Figures Figure 1: Model of effective Performance Management Process 5 Figure 2: Steps and Responsibilities in the Career Management Process 9 Figure 3: Strategy - decisions about competition 15 List of Tables Table 1: HR Practices utilized by Marks & Spencer to address strategic needs 17 Question 1: In an industry where competition is intense, developing staff has probably never been so important. By training and developing its staff, discuss how Marks & Spencer is in a position to develop a competitive advantage over its competitors. Introduction A competitive advantage is a superiority that an organization can gain over its competitors by providing the same value at lower prices or charging higher prices for providing greater value through differentiation, Business Dictionary (2015). Grobler et al (2011:9) noted that in the past the focus of Human Resources (HR) was an administrative one (traditional HR) with focus on personnel issues, more recently HR has been recognized as being contributory to the organization’s overall strategy. HR is therefore an integral part of achieving competitive advantage. One such HR practice that enables competitive advantage is in training and development of its staff. Noe et al (2012:98) noted that in the knowledge...
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...PESTLE Analysis for MARKS and SPENCER Introduction Marks & Spencer is a British retailer with over 800 stores in more than 30 countries around the world. It is the largest clothing retailer in the UK, as well as being a food retailer. Most of it’s domestic stores sell both clothing & food, and since the year 2000 Marks & Spencer have started to expand into other ranges such as home wares, furniture & technology. Marks & Spencer became the first British retailer to make a pre-tax profit of over £1 billion “BBC News online 1998” Though a few years later Marks & Spencer were hit by the “credit crunch” which has had a dramatic effect on the company as they struggle in the current economical climate. Political Factors The government sets regulations for companies to abide by such as Health & Safety British Standards such as, planning for hazard identification, risk assessment and risk control. If companies do not abide by these regulations they will be fined or even in some cases be forced to close down. Marks & Spencer did not abide by the British Standards as they were charged for neglecting health & safety regulations after a door fell on an employee. George Blair was allegedly injured after a warehouse door in their store at Braehead, near Glasgow was left hanging on loose fixtures. Marks & Spencer are alleged to have ignored repair requests, allowing the door to fall into disrepair. Marks & Spencer pled not guilty to this; there is still no outcome of this trial. ...
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...1. Introduction Marks and Spencer is a company which has the United Kingdom as its primary market. It has many sectors to its business from clothing to banking to food. This report will primarily focus on two sectors, food and clothing but will also incorporate the overall progress of the company over the past ten years. This report aims to: * Study the performance and profitability and the differing contribution from Marks and Spencer’s two major sectors, food and clothes particularly analyzing the Financials using the ratios of Return on Equity and Return on Sales. Comparisons with competing firms in these sectors will also be made. * Demonstrate that Porters generic strategy may help explain the gulf in both performance and profitability between Marks and Spencer’s Food and Clothes sectors. * Determine that the resource based view may aid Marks and Spencer in understanding the market and its competition better, and thus place the company in a stronger position. 2 Financial analysis 2.1 Return on Sales Source: Thomson one Source: Thomson one Analyzing the financials of a company is a key part of understanding the performance and profitability of a company. As indicated in the introduction this report will firstly look at the Return on Sales of Marks and Spencer. The chart below shows the Change in the return on Sales for Marks and Spencer from 2004-2013. Return on Sales demonstrates the percentage of profit being made on each unit of sales. The Return...
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...Marks and Spencers Pestel Analysis Political - Marks and Spencers have cut salt and fat intake in many foods as part of fair trade. They have also make sure to support animal welfare and they recycle reusable goods. The government sets regulations for companies to follow such as Health and Safety, planning for hazard identificationa and risk control. If companies do not follow these regulations they will be fined or be forced to close down. Marks and Spencer did not abide by the British Standards as they were charged for neglecting health and safety regulations after a door fell on an employee. Marks and Spencer are alleged to have ignored repair requests, allowing the door to fall intodisrepair. Marks and Spencer pled not guilty to this; there is still no outcome of this trial. Econimical – Marks and Spencers revenue growth was around 2% in 2012 and its Uk retail market growth was at 1.2% which is the third lowest in the last 40 years. Marks and Spencers reported a 1% drop in underlying profits to £705.9m for the year. Although slightly ahead of predictions of £694m, it marked the retailer's first decline in three years. Sales increased by £194m to £9.9bn; the original plan required sales to ratchet up by around £800m a year. Social – Marks and Spencers keeps up to date with the social needs of customers most recently by creating low price versions of their products. Marks and Spencer aims to become a fair partner by working closely with suppliers in order to ensure that both...
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...Unit 10 – Promotional Activities Marks and Spencer Plc Section 1.0 - Introduction Throughout this assignment, I will be producing a plan of a promotion campaign for an existing business. I have decided to choose Marks and Spencer Plc. I will be looking at how Marks and Spencer use promotional activities and incorporate them into a promotional mix creating a vital choice in the success of the promotion campaign. As well, I will be considering whether promotional activities can affect a business’ final choice of promotional mix. Marks and Spencer Plc are located all over the UK, with currently 600 stores that range from the large stores to the simply food stores, but their largest store is situated at Marble Arch on London’s Oxford Street. By 1975 Marks and Spencer had opened over 285 international stores. The locations of all Marks and Spencer have nearby bus stops and car parks enabling it to be accessible to its customers, in addition, a large number for the stores have collect by car facilities for customers to pick up their goods at a later time. They currently employ over 75,000 employees in the UK and internationally. Marks and Spencer was founded by Michael Marks in 1884. He opened a stall at Leeds Kirkgate Market and all the items were sold for a penny. In 1894 Thomas Spencer invested £300 to become Michael’s partner in the company. Marks and Spencer have a very user friendly website, that shows their aims and objectives that they want to achieve to be...
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...different segments of consumers with respect to different product lines (Kotler, 2008). Targeting strategy is used to recognize the target audience for the particular products. Product positioning is used to identify the region in which the products will compete within a market place. These different elements of marketing process are elaborated in this study in order to understand marketing management. Introduction Effective marketing strategies and marketing principles increase the core competency of an organization. UK is known for several leading fashion retail chains. Leading companies like Zara, Top Shop, Marks & Spencer, and Miss Sixty are the leading fashion retails in UK (Moore, Bruce and Birtwistle, 2012). The study will discuss about the marketing strategies of Marks & Spencer’s in order to accomplish the objective of the study. Marks & Spencer is one of the leading multinational fashion retail chains headquartered in London. In UK the organization operates with its 718...
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...Strategic Planning of Marks and Spencer Group Executive Summary: In this report a step by step analysis of Marks and Spencer group strategic planning is presented. Mark and Spencer is one of the biggest retail company in UK and leading company producing women apparels. The report is begun with analyzing various external environment of the company that includes STEEP analysis and it helps to understand the external environment of the company. After that the report covers the business plan of the company with its strategic planning section, and how the company is able to implement its strategic planning. Whereas the focus of strategic planning is on the whole organization and the focus of the business plan is on a particular product or service. Contents Executive Summary: 2 Introduction and Company background: 4 Task 1 5 1.1 The importance of external factors affecting Marks and Spencer Group: 5 1.2 Analyze the needs and expectations of stakeholders of Marks and Spencer Group: 7 1.3 Analyze the major changes taking place in the external environment that will affect strategy of M&S: 8 Task 2 8 2.1 Use appropriate tools to analyze the effects of current business plans 8 2.2 Review the position of M&S in its current market 9 2.3 Evaluate the competitive strengths and weaknesses of M&S 10 Task 3 10 3.1 Use modeling tools to develop strategic options for M&S 10 3.2 Develop a comparative understanding of activity from organization...
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...Marks and Spencer would need to identify the various training needs within the working environment. They will carry out various gap analyses on skills and look at how existing staff are working to see what improvements could be made for the future employees who will become a part of Mark and Spencer. For the organisation to be successful, it is important for the business to have the right number of people with the right skills in the right jobs. Effective training depends on knowing what is required for an individual, a department and an organisation as a whole. Organisations would identify training requirements by looking at the current skills the staff all have, identify what the weaknesses are and then carry out new training methods to solve this and improve on this. The training cycle would be a main procedure that any company would use to identify new training needs. The training cycle is a four step process; 1. Identify training needs and any weaknesses, 2. Design the training to improve on the current training, 3. Deliver the new training and 4. Measure the success of the new training. At the end of every 6 months a performance review or appraisal takes place. Employees discuss their progress with their line managers. Employees are given ratings for the skills and competencies they have shown over the past year. These are compared with expected skills profiles for these areas. This feedback helps employees identify how they are performing in relation to the expected...
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...OM Individual Project Mark &Spencer case study Summary INTRODUCTION 3 I. HISTORICAL CONTEXT 3 A. Presentation of Marks & Spencer 3 B. Marks & Spencer’s strategy and its evolution 7 II. DISCUSSION 9 A. The evolutions in the area of operations management 9 B. The new goals of Operations Management 10 CONCLUSION 11 APPENDIX 12 INTRODUCTION Operations management includes the conception of a product; the planning of the material, financial and human resources, and the recording and the control of the production activities. It consists in finding the best approach to organize the supply, the production and the distribution of services and goods. The purpose is to optimize the processes of added value, by minimizing the costs (in the investments and in the operations) improving continually the flows from the supplier to the customer in order to satisfy them. The principle of Operation Management was created in 1776 by Adam Smith. It is used by companies since its creation; they followed its evolutions by adapting the new methods of OM within their business. The aim of this essay is to discover and analyze the different sights of operations management, its evolutions and significant changes during the last decade and define what are the new objectives of OM through one sector: the retail industry and more particularly across Marks & Spencer. Finding out the techniques of management that M&S uses, evaluating them and see the future operations they...
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...Marketing plan for Marc and Spencer Company Name Institution Date Introduction The key ways of ensuring that a company regains its market share, which it had once lost, is by developing a better marketing strategy. Better marketing strategies are developed when a company examines it strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. In this reaction, companies need to change the prices of the goods they sell, consider promotional changes as well as the product changes. In the development of the company, there are benefits and risks involved in the process of market planning. SWOT Analysis Strength In price lowering, a company is expected to reduce the rate it charges for the goods, in this relation, the company has to engage in competition with other companies. Luring customers from their competitors becomes the strategy that company needs to embrace (Patil & Bhakkad, 2014). In this relation, the Marks and Spencer clothing would be able to experience better market share reclamation. Under Bolland, the company would start an overhaul on how it operates on purchase. The company would be able to relieve itself from the aspect of using intermediaries in its transaction. Sacrificing the use of intermediaries in the company would put the company at a risk and give the Marks and Spencer Company an advantage over other companies. The strategy would be focused on cutting out of the intermediaries and working with suppliers. In this relation, the Marks and Spencer clothing...
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...Marks and Spencer IB209 Marketing Analysis Anshul Maini 1036526 Marks and spencer also called as M&S and Marks and Sparks was found in the year 1884 by two people Michael Marks and Tom spencer (Bevan, 2007). Ever since then marks and spencer has delivered goods of the best quality and now to day it stands as one of the best retail chains in the UK. They primarily deal in Clothing and food. The company is headquartered in London, UK and is the one of the biggest companies in the world. It’s ranked #725 in the Forbes 2000 list (Marks and Spencer on Forbes 2000 list, 2011) and is amongst the top 5 retail firms in the country. Currently the chairman of the company is Robert Swanell and the Chief Executive is Marc Bolland. (Annual Report, 2011). Over the years Marks and Spencer has gone through ups and downs. It is the first British Retail firm to make a Profit before tax of over £1 Billion which was in the year 1998.After that the company had hit rock-bottom which was due to heavy competition and the company’s inability to satisfy its customers, it went into heavy losses in its turnover. After amending a few policies and the change of the Chief executive, the company looked more closely at the customer’s needs, wants and demands and modelled their strategies around it, thus rising it from the ashes. However again in 2008, the company went into a credit crunch which was mainly because of the recession. (M&S shares dive on gloomy outlook, 2008) (Bevan, 2007).Although M&S has...
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...An Analysis of Marks and Spencer INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRM AND ITS INDUSTRY Marks and Spencer is one of the largest retailers in the United Kingdom, and is also known as a major retailer selling diverse product ranges under their own exclusive brand in more than thirty countries. Customer confidence in the Marks and Spencer brand remains second to none. According to recent research undertaken by the Company, it shows that, in clothing, Mark and Spencer has a clear lead over all its major competitors in the key areas of fit, quality, trust, breadth of range and customer service. In November of 2000, Marks and Spencer will launch a trial of three new lingerie-only outlets in Paris, Hamburg and Dusseldorf. According to industry statistics, Marks & Spencer remains the clear leader in the UK lingerie market, with over thirty percent of the market share. These pilot stores, distinctly branded 'msl', are designed to showcase the product range, taking the very best of Marks & Spencer lingerie to the Continent. Moreover, twenty-five percent of the 'msl' range has been designed exclusively for the continental market (Marks & Spencer PG). According to David Norgrove, Marks & Spencer Executive Director, the new stores developed by Marks and Spencer "clearly show how we can give customers what they want in the way they want it. Today we have both depth of product and a variety of retail formats, so that we can encompass factory outlet stores and designer clothing under...
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...Marks and Spencer (M&S) is one of the many well-known British retailers; boasting over 700 stores in UK only and a work force of over 78,000 people world-wide.1 Marks and Spencer manages four (4) major sections, clothing, food, home and financial services. In clothing, marks and Spencer offer women’s wear, lingerie, menswear, children’s wear and footwear. For food, they offer fresh foods, ready meals, food for special occasions and wine. In the home section, they vend designer furniture, for example Autograph. With over 21 million people visiting the stores each week, M&S has become the number one provider of women wear and lingerie in the UK, and are rapidly growing their market share in men wear, kids wear and home.2 The clothing and home ware sales account for 49% of its business whilst 51% is in food i.e. fresh produce, groceries, partly-prepared meals and ready meals.3 In 2007; M&S unveiled the Plan A- a £200m project to become carbon neutral by 2012 as part of a contribution to limit climate change. “Through Plan A we are working with our customers and our suppliers to combat climate change, reduce waste, use sustainable new materials, trade ethically and help our customers to lead healthier lifestyles”4 Business Strengths and Weaknesses: M&S have been known for their brand and its awareness worldwide, which has resulted to be one of their strongest assets 5. M&S is the leading clothes retailer in UK and has managed to offer more choices and excellent...
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